Member's statement: Lung Cancer: Rural and Coastal Areas

Member's statement by Mr Stewart Dickson on 3 March 2026.

MLA: Mr Stewart Dickson
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 3 March 2026
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: Lung Cancer: Rural and Coastal Areas
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5434399

Text

As chair of the all-party group (APG) on cancer, I will talk about lung cancer. Over the past 20 years, the number of lung cancer diagnoses in rural and coastal areas has effectively doubled, largely driven by an ageing population. That is putting great pressure on services. Across Northern Ireland, some 1,300 people are diagnosed with lung cancer every year, and around 44% of cases are picked up at the most advanced stage, when the chances of curative treatment are very small. Behind those statistics are families living in rural and coastal areas. They are waiting for appointments and scans and travelling long distances for them, and they often feel that the system is one step behind the disease. It is clear that where people live, and their circumstances, makes a huge difference. People who live in the most deprived areas are about twice as likely as people in other areas to develop lung cancer. The steepest rises in cases in Northern Ireland are in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust and the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust, where the populations are older and more spread out, yet five times more care-of-the-elderly doctors, physicians and other specialists are concentrated in Belfast than in those trust areas. That imbalance simply does not reflect where ageing people, and the people who are becoming unwell, live. Too few patients are referred urgently for the beginning of their treatment within the 62-day target. For lung cancer, those weeks are critical. If people live in a rural or coastal area, that can mean longer journeys, more waiting and, all too often, worse outcomes. The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England has recently argued that health resources need to be shifted towards our rural and coastal areas to reflect changing demographics, as there are older populations and higher illness burdens there. That argument applies equally here. If the fastest growth is needed in our coastal areas and rural communities, including mine in East Antrim, strategic healthcare planning must catch up with that reality. There is also a clear warning for the future. Although smoking remains the main cause of lung cancer, doctors and researchers are increasingly worried about the way in which highly addictive vapes are being targeted at young people. We are all aware of stories of schools in which pupils struggle to get through a lesson without vaping. We would be very foolish to assume that there will be no consequences from drawing often unregulated substances into our lungs. Finally, I pay tribute to the clinicians, patients and charities doing their best in a very stretched system. As a cancer survivor, I am acutely aware of the difference that dedicated staff and timely care can make, but we cannot ask people to bridge structural gaps through goodwill alone. Our constituents deserve a service that matches where they live and how they age and that gives them a fair chance when they are faced with a lung cancer diagnosis.

497 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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